Mixing & Mastering Guide
How It Works
Simple steps to order
Choose your service and options, upload your files, then complete your payment securely. We’ll take care of the rest and keep you updated throughout the process.
Guidelines
Prepare your tracks properly
Discover best practices for recording and exporting your files for mixing or mastering. Well-prepared sessions ensure better sound quality and a smoother workflow.
FAQ
Answers to common questions
Find clear information about turnaround times, file formats, revisions, and delivery. Everything you need to know before placing your order is right here.
How It Works
#2 Upload Your Files
Upload your files before adding to cart
#3 Secure Checkout
Complete your order with 100% safety
#4 Mixing & Mastering
Our engineers mix and master your project
#5 Final Delivery
Receive your finalized files from our engineers
#6 Revision Rounds
Three rounds included to ensure perfection
Guidelines
Recording Tips
To get the best results when recording at home, it’s important to capture clean, balanced tracks that give our engineers room to work. Here are some key tips before exploring our Mixing service.
Record your tracks so that the signal stays mostly in the green, occasionally reaching the orange on peaks. Avoid hitting the red, as this can cause distortion and limit the flexibility of mixing and mastering. Proper gain staging is essential for preserving clarity and dynamics.
Try to record in a space with minimal natural reverb unless it’s an intentional artistic choice. Rooms with excessive reflections can muddy your recordings. Soft furnishings, rugs, and curtains can help reduce unwanted echoes.
Keep a reasonable distance from the microphone – roughly 17 cm (about 7 inches) for vocals is a good starting point. Being too close can exaggerate proximity effect and create an unbalanced sound, while being too far can pick up too much room noise.
A pop filter reduces plosive sounds (like “p” and “b”) that can overload the microphone. Maintain consistent positioning and avoid sudden movements to ensure a clean, even capture.
Turn off fans, computers, and other noisy devices. Record during quiet times, and consider using a directional microphone to reduce unwanted room sounds.
A short test recording helps confirm that your signal is clean and properly set. It is the best way to check noise, placement, and microphone gain before starting the actual performance.
Whenever possible, record multiple takes of each part. This provides flexibility to choose the best performance or comp together the strongest sections.
Mixing Advice
Preparing your mixes properly ensures that our engineers can bring out the best in your music. Here are some key tips to keep in mind before exploring our Mastering service.
A well-organized session makes final checks faster and more reliable before mastering. Clear routing, clean labeling, and proper version management help avoid export mistakes, unwanted processing, and last-minute confusion.
Keep enough room on your master bus before mastering. Avoid heavy limiting or bus compression, and aim for a peak level around -6 dB to preserve dynamics and give the mastering stage proper flexibility.
Low frequencies are often the hardest part of a mix to judge accurately. Careful low-end control helps prevent masking between key elements, and removing unnecessary rumble keeps the mix cleaner. Avoid removing too much low end. Preserving the fundamental tones helps maintain the track’s weight and solid foundation.
Phase describes how sound waves interact with each other. When phase is not properly managed, parts of a mix can become weaker or even disappear in mono. Good phase alignment helps keep your mix clear, punchy, and reliable across mono playback systems.
Reference tracks help you stay objective while mixing. Comparing your mix with familiar songs, especially in a similar style, makes it easier to spot issues in balance, tone, depth, and overall impact before your ears adapt.
Compare your mix on different systems — headphones, monitors, and even small speakers. This helps identify balance or frequency issues and ensures your mix translates well across listening environments.
If there are specific creative intentions, communicate them clearly. Notes about which elements should stand out, preferred tonal characteristics, or reference tracks can guide engineers to achieve the sound you’re aiming for.
Export Guide
Exporting your tracks correctly is essential to ensure the highest quality for mixing and mastering. Here are key tips to prepare your session before sending it to Mix-Master Studio:
Always export at the highest possible resolution. Prefer 24-bit WAV or AIFF files with the original sample rate of your session. Avoid lossy formats like MP3, as they reduce detail and limit processing flexibility.
When exporting tracks for mixing, every file should start at the same exact point, even if there is silence at the beginning. This keeps all tracks perfectly aligned and makes the session easier to rebuild correctly.
Sending one audio file per track ensures maximum flexibility at the mixing stage. It allows every element to be treated independently and helps build a cleaner, more accurate final mix.
Keep your exports free from unnecessary processing, especially on the master bus. Only include effects that are intentionally part of the sound, so the mix remains flexible, clean, and easier to shape properly.
FL Studio – Use Export > Wave file and enable Split mixer tracks so each mixer channel is rendered as a separate WAV file. For multitrack delivery, export in Song mode and choose 24-bit or 32-bit WAV. Keep in mind that with Split mixer tracks, master effects are not printed on the individual track exports.
Ableton Live – Select the full arrangement, open Export Audio/Video, and set Rendered Track to All Individual Tracks. Make sure Render Start and Render Length cover the whole song from beginning to end, then turn Render as Loop, Convert to Mono, and Normalize off before exporting as WAV or AIFF.
Pro Tools – For multitrack export, select the full song range on each track, consolidate the clips, then export them as separate audio files. This is a clean way to create properly aligned files that can be dropped into another session easily. Pro Tools provides Consolidate Clip and Export Clips as Files for exactly this kind of workflow.
Pro Tools (fast workflow) – For a quicker aligned export, select everything from the very start of the session, consolidate each track, then press Cmd+Shift+K to open Export Clips as Files directly. This is a very practical way to deliver audio already consolidated from session start without any processing.
Logic Pro – Use File > Export > All Tracks as Audio Files to create one file per track. Choose WAV or AIFF, set the desired bit depth (usually 24-bit or 32-bit), and set Normalize to Off so the exported files stay ready for mixing in another DAW.
Clear file names help keep the session organized and efficient. Proper labeling reduces errors, speeds up workflow, and makes it easier to identify each track during mixing.
Before sending, listen through the exported files on headphones and speakers to ensure no unexpected clipping or errors occurred. Confirm that all intended effects, panning, and edits are correctly rendered.
FAQ
Mixing is the stage where all the individual elements of a song are balanced and shaped together. It includes level adjustments, EQ, compression, effects, stereo placement, and overall sonic cohesion. Mastering is the final stage, where the finished mix is refined, optimized, and prepared for release with the right tonal balance, dynamics, consistency, and playback translation.
Please send the individual multitrack files from your session, with one audio file per track. All files should start at the same point in the timeline, even if there is silence at the beginning, so everything lines up correctly. Clear file names, a rough mix, and any notes or references are also very helpful. You can order our Mixing service once your files are ready.
Please send your final stereo mix as a WAV or AIFF file, ideally at 24-bit or 32-bit float. Leave enough headroom, avoid heavy limiting on the master bus, and export the version you truly want mastered. If you have a reference track or specific notes, you are welcome to include them as well. You can order our Mastering service once your files are ready.
For mixing, multitracks are usually preferred, as they provide full control over every element of the song. Stems can also be used when needed, but they offer less flexibility because they are already grouped or partially processed. If you are unsure which format is best for your project, you can send what you have and we can guide you from there.
Yes, absolutely. A rough mix is often very useful because it gives a clear sense of your direction, balance preferences, and overall intention. It helps preserve the feel of your original idea while allowing the final mix or master to be taken further in a more polished way.
Yes. We can refine, complete, or enhance an existing mix. If some processing is already printed into the files, it is important to keep in mind that certain choices may not be fully reversible, but a strong result is still often possible depending on the material.
Only keep processing that is truly part of the sound or artistic direction. If an effect defines the identity of a track, it usually makes sense to keep it. In general, it is best to avoid unnecessary master bus processing and leave enough flexibility for mixing or mastering decisions later on.
Yes, and it is strongly encouraged. Notes about your goals, sonic preferences, concerns, or creative direction can be extremely helpful. Reference tracks are also valuable, as they help define the desired tone, balance, depth, and overall aesthetic of the final result.
All of our mixing and mastering services include three rounds of revisions. A round of revisions consists of a set of modifications (e.g., raising the guitars, lowering the drums, darkening the vocals, etc.).
If further modifications are still necessary after these rounds of revisions, each additional round will be billed at €10. Projects are usually approved by the artists after two rounds of revisions.
Please note: if you send back a new mix or new files that are different from the original file, this will be billed as a round of revisions, even if you are still entitled to several rounds of revisions for your track, as the work will have to be started from scratch.
You will receive the final delivered files in the appropriate format for your project, ready for listening, approval, or release. Depending on the service and your needs, alternate versions can also be prepared, such as instrumental, acapella, clean, or other requested formats.
Optional Add-Ons
Tailor your product with a selection of optional features, available on the page or as standalone products.
Bulk Pricing
Planning a full EP or album? Enjoy our discounted rates automatically applied in your cart when ordering 3 or more identical services.
Let’s Talk
Have a question or a project in mind? Get in touch to discuss your needs and receive a tailored response.
